


Cuties in Cafe's.

by RBnC



Series: If Life Were Different [2]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-07
Updated: 2015-01-07
Packaged: 2018-03-06 11:36:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3132980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RBnC/pseuds/RBnC
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Roxas gets caught in the rain without an umbrella and takes shelter in a little cafe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cuties in Cafe's.

The little café off of Sunset Boulevard is one of the only stores still lit up as the rain outside beats down. The sun set well over an hour ago – though, the sunsets in Twilight Town last for forever – and the small storm going on outside started just after all natural light had left the streets.

Roxas, unfortunately, had to stay behind to finish his work for class in the library and had missed his usual ride home. As his luck would have it, he’d also forgotten his charger at his apartment and his phone had died while in the library. Which meant that Roxas was without a means to call his brother’s boyfriend for a ride home.

So, to get out of the storm, Roxas had entered the only building on Sunset Boulevard with its lights still on. The blond came here a lot with his friends during their window for lunch, but he’d never been after the sun had set. He hadn’t even known it was open this late.

Roxas shakes his head a bit while he stands over the mat at the entrance, trying to get as much water off of him as possible. It’s pointless because his clothes are soaked through and he’s fairly certain the rain has gotten to most of his homework.

“Someone get caught in the storm outside?” A voice calls from the counter.

Roxas looks up to find a handsome redhead smirking at him from his spot where he’s leaning on the counter.

“Yeah,” Roxas mutters, looking down and noticing the huge puddle that’s falling from his clothing. “Shit, sorry.”

The redhead laughs and waves a hand as he gets up. “No biggie.”

When he stands up, Roxas is a little shocked at how tall the man is – easily six feet – as well as how thin. The blond is left standing awkwardly in the doorway trying to build up the courage to ask the redhead to use his phone. Or the building’s phone.

Something so he can go home and take a hot shower.

The redhead comes back with a few towels in hand. He places one on a bench seat right next to the door and gestures for Roxas to sit down. The blond quickly obeys and sits on the towel. The worker then unfolds one on top of Roxas’ head and one beneath his feet.

The blond quickly uses the towel to dry up his hair as much as he can and watches as the Café worker uses his feet to mop up the water Roxas had tracked in behind him. The trail leads right back over to Roxas’ table.

“So, can I get you anything while we’re both here?” The redhead smiles, and Roxas gets a bit lost in his stunning emerald eyes.

“No, thank you.” Roxas internally applauds himself for not stuttering in front of the cute barista.

“Too bad, would have given me something to do.” He closes his eyes and tilts his head, looking disappointed, before turning and walking back to his spot behind the counter with the wet towel in hand.

Roxas opens his mouth to say he changed his mind but quickly closes it to prevent himself from looking like an idiot. The blond lets his hands fall from their place drying his hair and jumps a small bit when his hand lands on something cold and wet.

Looking down, Roxas remembers that his bag – and more than likely everything inside – is soaking wet. Roxas pulls the strap from over his shoulder and opens up his book bag. Gently, he pulls everything out and checks on it.

His binder had prevented most of his stuff from getting ruined but some of the things not in his binders had been ruined around the edges. Roxas goes about sorting what is in his bag into different piles; safe, slightly damaged but still good, and completely ruined.

Once everything is sorted through and removed from his bag, he uses the towel that the barista had given him to dry his hair to dry his book bag. Once it’s as dry as he can get it, he sets it down on the towel next to him in the hopes that it will dry.

He stares at the things in front of him before looking outside. It’s raining harder now than it was earlier and Roxas sighs, wondering if it’s going to let up at all before curfew. Deciding that there’s nothing he can do until the rain lets up, Roxas sorts through his papers again before pulling out his unfinished work and setting out on it.

Roxas doesn’t know how much time has passed before he seems movement in his peripheral vision. Looking up, he sees the barista walking over to his table and he starts freaking out a bit.

“Need anything?” The redhead asks.

Roxas wants to ask for a Pumpkin Spice Latte but he’s too nervous, so all that comes out is, “No, thank you.”

The blond turns back to his work but the Redhead doesn’t walk away for a few seconds. Eventually he goes back to his seat behind the counter. Roxas wants to bang his head on the table a few times because he’s actually really hungry and a snack sounds really good and something warm to drink would be wonderful but he gets so scared of people he doesn’t know. Instead, he suffers in silence and goes back to his work in the silence.

His stomach does not, however.

Roxas almost snaps his pencil in half out of sheer mortification. The redhead behind the counter just laughs though, and it sounds pretty nice, but Roxas wants to pack up and go back outside and suffer in solitude.

“Are you hungry?”

Roxas drops the pencil with a bit of effort and covers his face with his hands, muttering, “Maybe.”

“Well since I KNOW for a fact you’re hungry, would you like something?”

“Two slices of Coffee Cake please.”

“And to drink?”

“Umm…Pumpkin Spice Latte.”

Instead of laughing – like Hayner does every time he has to order for Roxas – the redhead nods and sets about getting his order ready. Roxas stands up from his spot and checks that he’s not pouring water when he walks. When he decides he’s safe, he walks over to the counter and grabs his wallet.

The barista – whose name tag reads Axel – is grabbing his cakes while the mixer is working and sets them down on the counter before walking back to the drink. As Axel is working on his order, Roxas notices a sketchbook out on the counter with a beautiful drawing in the works on the top page.

The blond tilts his head, trying to get a better look and knowing how touchy artists get when you touch their art. The picture itself is just a bust shot but it’s being beautifully filled in. The person’s face is sort of round with fringe framing their face. Their eyes are large and expressive with semi thin eyebrows.

It actually looks kind of like-

“Here you go.” Roxas looks up to find Axel smiling at him kindly.

“How much?”

“Eleven fifty seven.” Roxas pulls out fifteen dollars and hands it over to the redhead.

As Axel is working the register, Roxas takes a sip of his latte and gathers all of the courage he has – which isn’t a lot – and opens his mouth.

“Is this me?” He asks, pointing to the picture on the counter.

Roxas decides it’s kind of worth the potential embarrassment when Axel’s face lights up and starts blending in with his hair.

“Depends.”

“On?”

“Do you like it?”

“It’s gorgeous. You’re _really_ good.” Roxas admits.

“Great. Then it’s you.” Axel walks back over after closing the register.

“What if I didn’t like it?”

“It’d still be you but I’d feel like an idiot.”

Roxas laughs, almost choking on his drink.

Thunder cracks outside and Roxas jumps a little as the rain starts hitting the roof a bit harder. Looking outside, Roxas can see the puddles in the street are growing larger, making the blond sigh deeply.

“Looks like I’m not walking home any time soon.”

“Why not call a friend for a ride?” Roxas turns back to see Axel covertly trying to hide his sketchbook.

“My phone died at the library and I forgot my charger.”

“Want to use mine to call someone?”

Roxas debates it before conceding, “Please?”

The redhead leans back in his seat and grabs his phone out of his too-tight pants pocket before handing it to Roxas. It’s a new phone, a touch screen, and Roxas has a bit of trouble navigating it but soon enough he has the phone to his ear as he’s dialing Riku.

Five rings in, the phone goes to voicemail. Roxas tries again, only to get voicemail _again_. On the third time, Roxas waits for the message on the voicemail to finish.

“ _I’m not answering for a reason, leave a message._ ” _Beep._

“Riku I know you’re banging my brother and I’m not going to stop calling until you come pick me up.” He hits end before remembering that he’s using someone else’s phone. And that someone else is right in front of him, laughing his ass off.

Roxas knows Riku has a compulsion to check his messages when he gets a new one so he waits a minute before calling back again. Riku answers this time, sounding very angry.

_“What do you want, Roxas?”_

“It’s raining really hard and I can’t walk home without ruining my work and I need a ride.”

_“I’m kind of in the middle of something.”_

“I know that, but when you get a chance, I’d like to get home tonight and the rain isn’t letting up.”

_“Fine, fine, I’ll pick you up. Where are you?”_

“At that little café off of Sunset Boulevard. The one I come to with my friends a lot.”

_“That’s still open?”_

“Yeah, apparently.” Roxas hears Sora talking in the background.

_“Another question, when did you change your ring tone on my phone?”_

“I didn’t?”

_“…Wait, are you using someone else’s phone?”_

“Yes.”

_“Proud of you man. I’ll be another half an hour.”_

“You mean an hour and a half.” Roxas sighs.

“ _Whatever_.” Riku hangs up and Roxas sighs, hitting the end call button on Axel’s phone.

“That sounded like an interesting call.” Roxas hands Axel back his phone and sighs, taking a sip of his Latte.

“Phone calls to Riku are always _interesting_.” Roxas lays as much sarcasm into the last word as he can.

“So this Riku person is banging your brother?”

Roxas rolls his eyes, “Yeah. He teases me about it a lot.”

“You need to wait here for a while then?”

Roxas nods, “If that’s alright with you.”

“Yeah. Usually I’m just at home watching B-rate movies with my roommate.”

Roxas starts panicking, “Were you supposed to close up by now???”

Axel huffs out a laugh, “Well, yeah, but you walked in looking like a kicked puppy and I couldn’t just throw you out.”

“I can walk home! I’m sorry!” Roxas turns to get his stuff and leave but a hand on his arm stops him from leaving the counter.

“Hey, hey, it’s fine, really. I’ve already seen the line-up for tonight and I’m not missing anything good.”

“Won’t your roommate worry? Don’t you get penalized if you don’t close up at a certain time?”

Roxas would definitely get docked if he didn’t close up at a certain time and he knows for a fact that if he’s not home and he hasn’t called one of his brothers they tend to worry really badly.

“Nah, my boss is super chill.” Axel lets go of Roxas’ arm, “I can wait here with you.”

Roxas frets and that niggling little voice in the back of his head tells him that it’s not really okay and he’s going to get in trouble for having the shop open so late.

“Seriously, man, it’s cool.” Axel leans on the counter and Roxas nods, trying not to freak out too much.

“So what are you working on over there?”

“Hm?” Roxas looks behind him to the seat he was occupying earlier, “Oh, just classwork. I have to get it done by Thursday.”

“Shouldn’t you be…I don’t know…working on it?”

“Probably.” Roxas shrugs, mentally laughing at his dilemma.

“You gonna go work on it?”

“Probably not. Besides, you’re more interesting than that stupid project and I’m the best at procrastinating.”

“The best huh? I once had three months to write a paper and procrastinated so hard that I was putting the finishing touches on it as I was walking onto campus the day it was due.”

Roxas laughs, loud and obnoxious – the laugh Hayner teases him about – because that is a serious case of procrastinating. After he calms down a touch, he looks directly at the smug-looking Axel.

“I didn’t want to do my last project so badly that I went out and got a _job_.”

Axel laughs so hard he has to use the counter for support to keep standing. Roxas doesn’t think he was that funny, but maybe it’s the late hour or maybe it’s the oddness of their situation that makes this so entertaining.

“Alright. Alright, that is some serious procrastination. Did you get the project done?”

“Yes, but barely. I had to BS the whole thing. I can’t believe I got an A- on it.”

Roxas doesn’t know how, but they talk like that for a good hour before a car pulls up outside. Axel stops his telling of a story involving a goat, a pineapple, and his roommate’s Sitar to look outside. It’s still raining outside, though not as hard as it was when he’d called Riku.

“That the guy bangin’ your brother?” Axel asks.

“No, that’s not Riku’s car.” Though it does look familiar and it’s not until the driver walks through the door of the Café that Roxas realizes who it is.

“Hey, Squirt.”

“Hey, Terra. Why are you here?”

“Riku called and asked me to come get you. He got…tied up.” Terra makes a face like he bit into a lemon.

Roxas just shakes his head and grabs his book bag – which he’d cleaned up along with the towels – and drink. Terra walks back out to his car before Roxas – the two never got along spectacularly, though they didn’t dislike each other – and Roxas makes to follow him.

“Hey, Rox,” Axel calls out to the blond and waves him over.

“Yeah?”

Axel blushes a bit, though not like he had earlier, but looks him in the eye.

“Can I have your number?”

Roxas feels his own face heating up in response, “Um, really?”

“What do you mean, really?”

“No one ever asks for my number.”

Terra honks his horn to get Roxas to hurry up.

Roxas turns to look at Axel, “How about a trade.”

Axel looks surprised, “Trade?”

“Yeah; my number for the picture you drew of me.”

“Counter proposal,” Axel smiles, “You give me your number so we can meet up some time and I can finish it. Then it’s all yours.”

Roxas smiles, grabbing a pen from his backpack as well as Axel’s hand and scribbling his number down. Axel grabs his pen and does the same as Terra honks his horn again.

“So I’ll talk to you later?” Axel asks as Roxas leaves the little café.

“Definitely.”

 


End file.
